The Ninth Gate starts as New York based rare book dealer Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is hired by wealthy businessman Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) who collects rare ancient occult books which deal with the devil & satanism. Balkan hires Corso to authenticate his copy of 'The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows' that legend has it was co-authored by Satan himself & of which there are only three in existence although Balkan believes only one is real while the other's are fakes & he wants to know if his is kosher. The first of the other two books resides in Portugal with a collector called Victor Fargas (Jack Taylor) & the other in Paris with Baroness Kessler (Barabra Jefford), wherever Corso travels death seems to follow as he digs deeper into the meaning of the books & discovers that they may be the key to unleashing Satan himself upon the Earth...
This French, Spanish & American co-production was co-written, produced & directed by Roman Polanski & has a few admirable qualities but ultimately isn't that successful & let down by a few things. The script by Polanski, John Brownjohn & Enrique Urbizu was based on the novel 'El Club Dumas' by Arturo Perez-Reverte (it actually had a large subplot about a secret society obsessed with serialised novels such as those written by Alexandre Dumas during the 19th Century, a subplot which wasn't included in this filmed adaptation) takes itself extremely seriously & indeed wants to be taken very seriously which is sort of it's downfall. The basic story is interesting for a while but it takes ages to get to where it's going & the straight faced nature of all the mumbo jumbo nonsense is a little hard to take seriously. At well over 2 hours in length the film outstays it's welcome, for a film with a fairly simple plot & little on screen action it sure takes it's time & I have to admit I was starting to lose interest in it. I didn't like the ending either, the ambiguity surrounding the identity of the woman is frustrating to say the least, I had sat through over 2 hours of this to get to a resolution but if anything the end just poses more questions. In fact on the IMDb 'FAQ' page for The Ninth Gate the only question asked so far is 'Who was the girl?' & every vague response is different which says everything about the mess of an ending. Also, if Balkan was prepared to kill people for the other two books so readily why did he need Corso? Surely Balkan could have just have the people murdered in the first place & steal the books, does that not make a bit more sense instead of letting Curso wander around Europe with his copy & indeed the only one in existence? Having said that I thought the film had some interesting ideas & the basic story behind it was solid & could have made for an exciting supernatural thriller which to be fair it almost is. The character's are pretty good & the dialogue is fine but it's just a bit too slow & hard to stay with.
Director Polanski returns to the horror genre for the first time since The Tenant (1976) & The Ninth Gate is a surprisingly bland film, it's well made & there are one or two little touches of style & imagination but not many. The film is very grounded in reality until the very end & tries to pile on the paranoia & mystery which is alright but at the expense of being scary or frightening, in fact until the final few minutes there is no indication anything supernatural is going to happen at all. There's no blood or gore & few special effects.
With a supposed budget of about $38,000,000 (which sounds a lot considering how the film turned out) this is well made with that big budget Hollywood look, shot on location in France, Spain & Portugal. Depp made this before he shot to mega stardom as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks, the rest of the cast are pretty much unknowns to me.
The Ninth Gate is a straight faced supernatural thriller which could have been better but then again it could have been worse, some of it works while some of it doesn't. I liked it, just about, but I doubt I'll ever want to watch it again.
This French, Spanish & American co-production was co-written, produced & directed by Roman Polanski & has a few admirable qualities but ultimately isn't that successful & let down by a few things. The script by Polanski, John Brownjohn & Enrique Urbizu was based on the novel 'El Club Dumas' by Arturo Perez-Reverte (it actually had a large subplot about a secret society obsessed with serialised novels such as those written by Alexandre Dumas during the 19th Century, a subplot which wasn't included in this filmed adaptation) takes itself extremely seriously & indeed wants to be taken very seriously which is sort of it's downfall. The basic story is interesting for a while but it takes ages to get to where it's going & the straight faced nature of all the mumbo jumbo nonsense is a little hard to take seriously. At well over 2 hours in length the film outstays it's welcome, for a film with a fairly simple plot & little on screen action it sure takes it's time & I have to admit I was starting to lose interest in it. I didn't like the ending either, the ambiguity surrounding the identity of the woman is frustrating to say the least, I had sat through over 2 hours of this to get to a resolution but if anything the end just poses more questions. In fact on the IMDb 'FAQ' page for The Ninth Gate the only question asked so far is 'Who was the girl?' & every vague response is different which says everything about the mess of an ending. Also, if Balkan was prepared to kill people for the other two books so readily why did he need Corso? Surely Balkan could have just have the people murdered in the first place & steal the books, does that not make a bit more sense instead of letting Curso wander around Europe with his copy & indeed the only one in existence? Having said that I thought the film had some interesting ideas & the basic story behind it was solid & could have made for an exciting supernatural thriller which to be fair it almost is. The character's are pretty good & the dialogue is fine but it's just a bit too slow & hard to stay with.
Director Polanski returns to the horror genre for the first time since The Tenant (1976) & The Ninth Gate is a surprisingly bland film, it's well made & there are one or two little touches of style & imagination but not many. The film is very grounded in reality until the very end & tries to pile on the paranoia & mystery which is alright but at the expense of being scary or frightening, in fact until the final few minutes there is no indication anything supernatural is going to happen at all. There's no blood or gore & few special effects.
With a supposed budget of about $38,000,000 (which sounds a lot considering how the film turned out) this is well made with that big budget Hollywood look, shot on location in France, Spain & Portugal. Depp made this before he shot to mega stardom as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks, the rest of the cast are pretty much unknowns to me.
The Ninth Gate is a straight faced supernatural thriller which could have been better but then again it could have been worse, some of it works while some of it doesn't. I liked it, just about, but I doubt I'll ever want to watch it again.